THE WELL ROUNDED PERSON

 

This is not the consequence of too many take away meals and too little exercise. The well rounded person is what employers and Admissions Tutors at university are looking out for. You should aim to achieve the best grades you can but you should also aim to develop all those vital but non-examination skills like leadership, initiative, teamwork, personal interaction, responsibility, perseverance and optimism! These are skills you practise and use and find when involving yourself in a wider ranges of activities. Be bold and try helping a younger child to read or teach a youngster some science or ICT skills. Run the college shop. Organise a ‘do’. Try getting involved in peer mentoring. Be a lunchtime supervisor on Glossop Site. Run a college branch of a national organisation like Amnesty International. Raise money for charity. Be a student rep. Whatever it is --- have a go and tomorrow be more than you are today. It makes you the kind of person likely to stand out from the herd.

 

SELLING YOURSELF

As a Year 12 student you may well think that you don't have to start worrying about your university applications for a long time yet. Unfortunately, in these days of increasing competition for university places, you do not have the luxury of time. You need to get ahead of the game by thinking about the qualities an admissions tutor will be looking for in your application, and developing them if they are lacking!

Remember that your UCAS form will be just one of hundreds that he or she sees, so you need to make sure yours stands out from the others. Gone are the days when everybody was interviewed for every course - universities don't generally have time for this. Even if you do get some interviews, they can be a much less important part of the process than they were. This means that you must really sell yourself on the form. Try to look at it from the point of view of an admissions tutor. They are all different but all tutors will be interested in similar things about you:

 

Motivation

Why do you want to study this subject and how committed are you? It is very important to give the impression that you have thought long and hard about this, rather than looking as if you have stuck a pin in a course directory. There is time for you to work on this; if you want to study one of the subjects you are taking now do some extra reading to show your commitment. If you intend to go for a new subject, make sure you at least read some basic textbooks to find out what is involved (admissions tutors can easily spot those who haven't done this!). Attend lectures outside college, for example scientific lectures for young people. Put your name down to attend summer school courses. You can obtain specific careers information from professional bodies. The overall message you want to get across is that you have put in the effort researching the subject area, which shows commitment and enthusiasm.

 

 Academic Ability

It is absolutely vital that you don't sit around doing nothing this year on the basis that you can go all out next year. Your tutor will write a reference on your UCAS application form which will be based on what you have done (or not done!) this year. The reference will include predicted grades estimated from this year's work. For very competitive courses this may well make the difference between being offered a place or not. And, in any case, no tutor will be impressed by an applicant who doesn't study, as this is supposedly the whole point of going to University! Incidentally, GCSE results also count - check whether you need to resit any for the course you want to do (Maths and English Language are usually the important ones).

 

Relevant Experience

For many vocational degrees this is essential and now is the time to arrange it. If you want to study medicine, nursing, other health-related courses, teaching, law, media studies, and many other subjects, admissions tutors might not consider you unless you have had some relevant work experience and it is much better to fit this in year 12, so that you can write about it on your application form.

 

A Responsible Attitude

When you get to university you will find that things are very different from college. You will have a lot more freedom to plan your work, organise your time, express your own opinions etc., so you need to show that you are not going to crack up in the face of difficult decisions. Therefore, any experience which shows you to be a mature and responsible adult helps: part-time jobs; positions of responsibility (in or out of college); or voluntary work.

 

Outside Interests

No admissions tutor wants to teach a group of studyautomatons, and might even prefer a more sociable applicant with slightly lower predicted grades over the brilliant hermit! They will also want to know whether you will make an effort to contribute to the social life of the course. If you have no interests, and have never done anything outside your lessons in college, now is the time to change matters. Take part in drama or musical productions; join a club or society for your particular hobby; if you are keen on sports, get playing; involve yourself in voluntary work in the community; contribute to the college magazine (especially if you want to do media studies). Get involved in fund raising or other charity events. Join the student forum. There are plenty of things you can do, and this year you will have more time for it than next year, so there are no excuses - and they really will help your application.

 

Awareness of the World

Admissions tutors appreciate students who can relate their studies to the wider world, and this is particularly important for would-be doctors, economists, politicians or teachers. You should aim to read one of the "quality" newspapers at least every other day, so that, for example, if you apply for medicine you can show that you have kept up with NHS news over the year.

 

The Well Rounded Person

The phrase you will often come across as summing up what tutors look for in the personal statement is 'a rounded personality'. What this boils down to is that you need to paint a picture of yourself, in words, which makes you jump off the page and say "offer me a place"! This is a time consuming task, which is why you should start thinking about it now.

Make a list of the relevant details you want to include and do a rough draft. Think about the structure of the piece. Many admissions tutors will have a huge pile of forms with yours in the middle of it. If you start your personal statement with a long and rambling introduction about your badminton prowess, tutors may never get on to the bit about you winning Mastermind with their subject as your specialism! Be concise and tell them the most relevant facts first. As well as catching attention and keeping it, a well structured piece will give a good impression and shows you to be the organised and capable person that you are! Once you've written a draft it is very important to get a friend to read your statement. You may think you've been embarrassingly confident but someone else may suggest other qualities or skills you have, that you've not included. Your tutor will proof read the form. It doesn't look very impressive if you've spelt Psychology wrong while you are telling the Admissions Tutor that it's been a lifelong dream of yours to study it!

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